Sitting in a Berlin hotel, Vince Karter looks happy — and rightly so. After all, the industry has not seen a Europe-based French stud of this magnitude in years. Having now won XBIZ Europa Male Performer of the Year twice, in 2020 and again this year, Karter is proof that porn loves a rugged Euro-hunk.
Karter’s talent and drive make him seem likely to break internationally once he gets a few American titles under his belt. He also has the explicit blessing of the pope of Euro male talent, Rocco Siffredi. Right before traveling to Germany for the latest successful edition of the XBIZ Berlin conference, I messaged the one and only Italian Stallion to ask if there was anyone I should be sure to meet during the show.
His answer: “Vince Karter!”
So now here we are, sitting down for this interview in the hotel room he shares with his on- and off-camera partner and co-host for the 2022 Europa Awards, continental superstar Cherry Kiss. She barges in at some point during the recording, but leaves with a bemused smile and a wave of the hand; this is her man’s time to get the star treatment.
Karter moved to Budapest four years ago to be near Kiss, and he has never looked back.
“I can say I’m very lucky to be successful like I am, and to be able to share my skills with the world,” he unabashedly tells XBIZ.
A decade ago, when Karter first dipped his toe in the male talent pool, he was a 20-something swinger in his native Paris.
“I had been doing swinger things for five years and some friends from that world told me, ‘Oh, you need to try porn,’” he explains. “A woman I knew said, ‘I have some contacts who can be good for you.’ Until then, I was not connected with that world at all.”
Success for male talent in adult can be tricky, but Karter tried out with Dorcel and just like that, he says, “I was in porn.”
“Very quickly after that I got to do a lot more shooting in France, and I started to collaborate a few times with Dorcel. And after that experience, I started to understand that porn could be something really interesting for me — very much what I already liked.”
Before getting paid to have sex with incredibly beautiful women wearing expensive lingerie in impeccably appointed, palatial Parisian apartments out of a Proust novel, Karter had an office job.
“I was managing the construction site of a real estate renovation project,” he reveals. “Good money, but very boring!”
Budapest and ‘Going Pro’
But even after “going pro” in France, for several years porn remained more of a hobby than a job.
“I was like, ‘Okay, it’s fun. I like it.’ I’m a very sexual guy, but I still had my ‘real’ life and friends, etc. In Paris you cannot shoot every day; it wasn’t something where I really thought I could be a professional.”
It was only when Karter moved to Budapest four years ago that he got really serious about his career.
“I met Cherry and she told me, ‘Come to Budapest. If you really want to shoot, it can be really interesting for you.’ Cherry is from Serbia, but has been living in Budapest for 10 years. And I arrived — and I moved there! And very, very fast thereafter, I started to shoot for different companies and to shoot a lot. After three or four months, I was shooting nearly every day.”
This discipline gave new purpose to the erstwhile Paris swinger. “It made me realize being a top performer was something I could really do in the porn business.”
Budapest is currently central to the European porn landscape. “It has Rocco, it has DDF — they shoot a lot,” the plugged-in, in-demand performer lists out. “LoveHerFeet shoots there. Evil Angel is shooting there, with Cherry. Porno Dan has been there for a while. Vixen is now there too, with Julia Grandi.”
The ultrafocused Karter was now undoubtedly on a path to success, which surprised even himself.
“I never planned to have an award or anything like that, but after a couple of years, I was shooting nearly every day,” he explains. “I started getting nominations for the 2020 XBIZ Europa awards — with my 2019 work, my first year putting myself really out there, I got recognized for ‘Jacky,’ the ‘Joker’ parody.”
“Jacky,” in which Karter reprised the incel villain role that landed Joaquin Phoenix an Academy Award the same year, was a French movie that required a lot of non-sex acting. “It took a lot of commitment on everyone’s part,” he says. “It’s a movie that was very deep, dark and it’s something I think we did a very interesting job with. I’m very proud of this movie.”
That year, Karter won awards for a scene from “Jacky” and for best Gonzo scene, as well as his first trophy for Male Performer of the Year.
“So, I took three in one year!” he says, smiling without arrogance. “After, it was even easier to find more jobs. And now I can go back to Paris and also shoot for the French studios. I’m still in touch with Pascal Lucas, who I met when I started off, and he brings me back to shoot for his projects.”
A Role Model’s Endorsement
Setting up shop in Budapest also allowed Karter to become a trusted protege of one of his porn heroes.
“My dream when I was starting off was to meet Rocco and maybe shoot with him,” he says. “And now, we have a great connection, a good work connection, all the time. To be trusted and supported by him, for me is the one of the biggest achievements I can think of. I was not even dreaming about this. Like, you know, I compare all the time with a football player — imagine you like playing football, and the best player tells you, ‘What you do is good, I support you and I like your style.’ I already reached my dream with that. And for me, Rocco is still ‘the legend — Rocco!’”
Ultimately, however, what made the move to Budapest crucial for Karter was the “boot camp” aspect, which he recommended to any would-be on-camera stud.
“I think Budapest is a very good school,” he says. “We work a lot. It’s not easy. When you learn to work in Budapest, you can work everywhere. You have to get really good at DP, for example, things where you really need to be focused on the details. It’s not like you’re doing it for your own fun. You really need to be focused on being very professional. After I arrived there, the guys taught me so much, all the time thinking about the results on camera. It’s the best school to learn to be a real professional.”
In Prague, the second capital of adult production right now in Europe, Karter learned how to shoot VR. He sees the time he spent building up his skill set as crucial to his success.
“I can shoot gonzo, I can shoot a very romantic scene … I can shoot any kind of scene the producers can ask for. This is the key to working a lot.”
Living the Dream
The other key to the job, Karter advises male talent hopefuls, “is to bring your own creativity, but still be focused all the time on the result on camera.”
Right now, after picking up his second Male POTY accolade in three years, the Parisian hunk has his eyes on the next prize.
“I really want to move to the next step in my career,” he confesses.
“What would that be?”
“Los Angeles,” he says, without missing a beat.
“Look, I like what I do,” he concludes in the unusually humid heat of the Berlin summer. “I’m passionate every day and I go to work with a smile. I know where I’m from, and I know that every day, I get to do something that is my dream. And I cannot be happier than that.”
